Happy Monday friends! How was your weekend? Man, this one was so sweet and yet so tough for me, as I came down with the mother of all colds on Friday. I've spent the last two days mostly feeling like there was an anvil sitting between my temples, wincing at the smallest of sounds and wondering if it was too early in the day for Nyquil. Nevertheless, Saturday heralded a beautiful Valentine's, with love from Isaac as well as good friends (more in a post later this week. Spoiler alert: there was pizza. And three people. Not like that, perverts). Most crucially though, in an effort to have things looking a little more slick here on TSWIL, I wearily dabbed some concealer on my red nose and soldiered through a little photo shoot with my sweet friend Saskya. I've posted some of the photos she took below, if you'd like to see.

Posing with my fellow brunette girls

Smooch

Our wonderful friend Anthony, who lives upstairs, and Isaac's great friend Chaz, who was in town from Chicago, braved the sub-zero temps and opted for some male bonding outside.

There were cigars, of course.

#justkids

Happiness. It does look like I gave birth to a newborn cat though. Someone call the Mail Online!

Messy books (we've still got lots of projects to work on in the house) but there's sunlight and plants so I'm smiling.

I'm Alexandra King-Lyles, a journalist and writer living on a tree-lined street in Park Slope, Brooklyn with my husband Isaac and two black cats. I moved to New York from London in 2009, thinking I would only stay for nine months. Seven years later, I'm still here. On The Street Where I Live, you'll find real talk about relationships, careers, interiors, books and fashion as well as snapshots and personal stories from a blissfully imperfect life. Welcome, I'm so glad you're here.